It's time to make dreams happen
courtesy of Jaison Lin/Unsplash
This year is the year I promised myself to chase those wild dreams. Now, it wasn’t a 2023 resolution, but rather the culmination of everything coming together.
It’s still incredibly wild to even utter these words, but I am officially moving to Tokyo, Japan two weeks from today. Still debating if I’m asleep, but I remind myself that it in fact is reality and I made it happen.
Actually planning to pursue that crazy, at the time seemingly impulsive thought, is very eye-opening. After a decade and a half of neglecting my own wants and needs, I made the very calculated decision to apply to a Japanese language school. Since 12 I’ve wanted to visit, but of course, life happens. Now at almost 30, I’m at a point in my life where I trust myself and know I deserve to conduct my life the way I want, and holy shitake, is a beautiful feeling.
The last few years have been a lot of trial and error in figuring out my life from all aspects. Especially my career. I work as a freelance Japanese pop culture journalist and writer in other industries. Getting serious about what I wanted out of my career and aspirations, pushed me to start learning Japanese again (after many years of starting and stopping), which turned into seeking out different avenues to learn the language. After seeing a random (who am I kidding, the algorithm truly gets me) ad for Go Go! Nihon I discovered studying in Japan is even a possibility for someone out of college and approaching my 30s. Over the last two years, I spent my free time researching, saving, and preparing behind the scenes to apply for the program.
A lot of steps were involved to get to today, I’ve been happily sharing them on my TikTok — and hope to share more about my journey as an American woman going to language in school in Japan alone here as well.
Truthfully I don’t know what my schedule will be like once I’m in Tokyo as I’ll have school every day for ~3.5 hours and continuing my writing for the publications and clients I work with, but my goal is to be consistent here and address what I discover and learn throughout these six months.
For now, I am basking in this blissful feeling before I leave the US. I’m proud of myself and getting to this healthy point in my life, even when I haven’t always been met with excitement and understanding from others. And on that note, I leave you with this gem of a song. Read the EN lyrics if you want a mood booster and spark of motivation.
またね〜
See you later!
